AIDS/LifeCycle Event Concludes, Raising $4.4M in Donations
The first AIDS/LifeCycle event wrapped up on Sunday, as 670 cyclists rode into Los Angeles, ending a 600-mile journey from San Francisco, the Los Angeles Times reports. AIDS/LifeCycle was created by the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation last year after the two organizations split with Pallotta TeamWorks, which sponsors the California AIDSRide. The two organizations decided to create their own AIDS bicycle event because they felt that Pallotta "devoted too much of the funds raised" from the California AIDSRide to marketing and operations expenses. AIDS/LifeCycle has so far raised more than $4.4 million in donations and attracted participants ranging in age from 18 to 71. One of the cyclists, 53-year-old Ben Goldstein, has been HIV-positive for more than 20 years and has had AIDS for more than six years. Goldstein rode with a group of HIV-positive cyclists known as the Positive Pedalers. He said that he rode to support SFAF, which has helped pay for his antiretroviral drugs, and to "maintain awareness" for HIV/AIDS. "I feel like I was going to climb over my own kind of Mt. Everest doing this trip from San Francisco to L.A. It was my way of saying no to the virus," Goldstein said (Rabin, Los Angeles Times, 5/20).
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